To Make a Leek Hat Bouquet (Patreon)

Ok, so you know those hilarious little powder poof hats that form on Allium plants?

Wait, back up: do you know what Allium is?

(Image source)

So, like, as far as I understand, plants belong to different families, and even though the individual, uh, species(?) may be different from each other, they all originally developed from the same origin plant and thus share similar designs and functions.

Allium is the plant family that encompasses garlic, onion, leek, shallot, scallion, and chives, which is why they all (I think?) create similar flower ball clusters at the top of a thin, tall stalk with no branches. FUN ERIKA FACTOID: I am moderately allergic to all of the above, most especially onions. Not enough to endanger my life, but enough to turn the air poisonous for everyone else and then wreck your toilet. YOU’RE WELCOME FOR THAT MENTAL IMAGE 🤗

These are my leeks. Actually, they’re Matt’s, but I hang out with them more so if they were a dog and you did that loyalty test where you and your partner stand on either side of your pet and then run in opposite directions, these dog-leeks would definitely chase after me.

Their flower buds start out all tight and smooth until the tiny flowers inside begin to rip the casing open from their sheer volume.

A process which sometimes leaves that original bud casing to remain on that new flower ball like a jaunty little hat. Like so:

Normally I leave them, but then the other day I noticed that one of the little casing-hats had dislodged and dried out into a stiff little shell.

How utterly delightful.

It looks like its own little flower, with the casing all bursted out like petals.

And you know what one does with flowers?

One makes a bouquet.

I plucked up all the little Allium hats that had dried out but hadn’t actually detached from their flower globes yet and stuffed their top pointy bits upside down into a novelty sample size booze bottle that I’ve saved for the last few years because I was like “Someday I will have just the right sized flowers to put in this beautiful little glass.”

That tall clear bottle on the left was a plastic soap dispenser, I believe. I save a lot of odd-shaped little bottles- just in case. You never know when you might need them!

Unrelated (except that it is still about leeks), but look at this series of images of a flower bulb slowly emerging from the parent stalk over several days:

Am I a monster for immediately thinking of the chestburster scene from Alien?

In (Erika’s garden) space, no one can hear you scream.

Why is my brain the way that it is.

Much like the flowering bud of an Allium plant, I contain multitudes U_U